Ramblings from an earthling whose serious attempts at confronting reality may just piss some fellow earthlings off..;)

Monday, June 27, 2005

I got delivery of my Toyota Innova 2 Fridays ago.I'm one of the lucky ones because my car wasn't actually due till mid October this year. You see, I made my booking only on the 28th of May and in all honesty was not prepared for the surprise when my salesman called ten days later, saying "Jeoffrey, your car is here..". I felt happy and terrified at the same time coz I am probably the luckiest of the lot but financially I was nowhere prepared for the remainder of the downpayment. "How come so fast?" I asked Lionel the salesman in Manglish, and he said this to me, in all the Glory of the Queen's English "This is God's blessing to you", and my jaw dropped.

Just a couple of days before that my neighbour was telling me how he had been given the runaround by the Toyota dealership at Balakong (notice how it rhymes with "Ah Long"?) and had waited since October last year for their Avanza. So poor old Servaswaran and Sujatha made their way to UMW's HQ to find out what the whole fuss was all about. Boy were they surprised to know that they were supposed to have already taken delivery of their car! To cut the long story short, apparently the dealership accepted bribes from eager customers wanting to jump queue to grab their hands on the Avanza. Hmmmm...very familiar story when Proton was producing cars in the mid 90's (these days they produce garbage :)) Come to think of it, have anyone of you seen the Savvy on the road? I've seen a few Myvis but not the Savvy.

Back to my neighbour's story. A day after they complained to UMW, they got their car. And this was 8 months after they placed their booking, one month later than promised by the dealership. And the weekend before I got my car Servaswaran was relating to me what he went through. So you could imagine the look on poor old Servaswaran's face when my Innova pulled into the driveway, less than 3 weeks after I made my booking..:)

It seems in life one is often confronted with people who fall short on their promises. It happened to me last weekend. Not once. Not twice. But on numerous occasions. For the life of me, I can't understand why a lot of us make promises only to break them later without even so much as a blink! Here's what has been pissing me off over the last 72 hours :

1. Agony no 1 - some guy who was interested in my car promised to meet me up on Sunday to wrap up the sale. It was approaching noon when I called to confirm and he said he'd call me back "kejap lagi". Well to me kejap lagi means "in a jiffy", which should be within the next 10-15 minutes. The call never came and I was left wondering what happened. Till now that is. And it's Monday morning, for cryin out loud!!!! If you are not interested, then say so! What is wrong with being honest about it?

2. Agony no 2 - a dealer of mine who sells my detergent for a living is not making much headway despite a lot of promise not too long ago. So I paid him a visit to find out what needs to be sorted to jumpstart his sales. I found out that he's selective about when he does sales - he does it when the "crowd" is around. Hmmmm...ok. I told him if that were the case, then try telling the shops, restaurants and supermarts to sell only when the "crowd" is there. And close at other times. I mean, get real laaa.. you want to make money, you have to push yourself hard, don't give yourself excuses, especially in this day and age! Otherwise don't promise me you'll deliver a truckload of sales when you can't even get half of it!

3. Agony no 3 - I went to my kids' school to get their report card and was surprised to find out that they got "D" in Math. This was despite the RM350 a month I spend on their tutor, who comes to our home every Tuesdays and Thursdays, for the last year or so, and who was supposed to help my kids vastly improve their grades. I remember not having to attend tuition until Form IV in College; and that was because I had a lousy add math teacher! To add injury to the wound, the teacher has this remark - "itulah encik...saya pun pelik..emak bapak dia terra2 tapi anak dia...." and with that she gave me an empty look! My wife has since then told Sharon the tutor to stop coming for my kids' lessons.

4. Agony no 4 - do you know what if feels like to be continually deprived of sleep for 3 years in a row? Well that's what I'm going through and believe me there's no end in sight yet. My youngest boy is special but the weird thing about him is he gets by with maximum 3-4 hours of uninterrupted sleep every night. And when he's awake, he'll crave for attention. It's 3 am, you're tired, you've got a gazillion things to do the next day, and he's gnawing on my forehead. Yeah..precisely! This is one habit of his that is not funny at all especially when he sinks his teeth into your skin! Promises broken here? Well, let's just say the people that we took my son to for therapy and medication are saying that he will come out of it so both my wife and I are hoping that it will come soon.

Tuesday, June 07, 2005

I never liked office politics. I think it's completely unproductive and a total waste of time. In my 15 years of working life, I have never subjected myself to anyone's beck and call and I only believe in merit. Sure I've had my run ins with former colleagues and superiors but those are simply because in every incident, I stand for what is right. Nothing more, nothing less.

Unfortunately there are those of us, some very educated, with scrolls of degrees and what have you, who continue to prey on people's fears by instilling doubts on our capabilities and that of our colleagues. These are the same people who display the wisdom of kindergarden thugs, who cannot live without maintaining an iron fist on day to day matters, no matter how trivial they are. Sure in order to run a lean and mean machine, one needs to run a tight ship. But it should not come at the expense of merit. To go to war, you need brave and forward looking generals. To install footsoldiers as generals and expecting them to bring you victory is wishful thinking.

What I'm witnessing right now is a ship with a clueless captain, and whose mates are jumping ship. Why you may ask.. well honestly speaking maybe they'd rather be eaten by sharks instead of making a pact with the devil. And these are people with integrity, courage and character.